A French Perspective in New York...
Join me as I search New York for everything that reminds me of Paris but of course is still New York. Follow me as I figure out what it means to be Paris in New York.

Photo Albums

February 28, 2008

La Vie en Rose
Directed by Olivier Dahan with Marion Cotillard and Jean-Paul Rouve.
The passionate but tumultuous life of famous French singer Edith Piaf

Lady Chatterley
Directed by Pascale Ferran with Marina Hands and Hippolyte Girardot
Winner of five major prizes, including Best Film and Best Actress at the 2007 César Awards, France's equivalent of the Oscars®, this very sensitive, poetic and sensual film is based on the second of three versions of D.H. Lawrence's tale about an innocent yet subversive passion between Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper. Beautiful movie... cf. post on Paris In New York, June 14th, 2007

Moliere
Directed by Laurent Tirard with Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini and Elsa Morante
22-year-old, Moliere is not yet the recognized writer of Tartuffe or Misanthrope. His Illustrious Theatre Troupe founded the previous year, is bankrupt. Hounded by creditors, Molière is thrown into jail, released, and then swiftly imprisoned again. When the jailors finally let him go, he disappears. The combined efforts of historians have unearthed no trace of him before his reappearance, several months later, when his troupe begins touring the provinces - a tour that will last for thirteen years, and culminate in Molière's triumphant return to Paris in 1658.

Blame it on Fidel
Directed by Julie Gavras with Nina Kervel-Bey and Julie Depardieu

Caught up in the political revolution sweeping France in the early 1970s, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and Marie (Julie Depardieu) reject the comforts of their bourgeois life and dedicate themselves full time to radical activism. This comes as a shock to their precocious nine year-old daughter, Anna (Nina Kervel), who struggles to understand her parents’ newfound ideals.

Paris je T'aime
A series of eighteen short vignettes about Parisian living by 21 directors like Gus Van Sant and Cohen Brothers and actors like Steve Buscemi, Nick Nolte, Fanny Ardant, Juliette Binoche, Gerard Depardieu or Natalie Portman...
Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in one of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen.

My Best Friend
Directed by Patrice Leconte with Daniel Auteuil and Dany Boon
Catherine refuses to believe that her business partner, the unlikeable François, has a best friend, so she challenges him to set up an introduction. Scrambling to find someone willing to pose as his best pal, François enlists the services of a charming taxi driver to play the part.

4
( La poine Courte, Cleo de 5 a 7, le Bonheur, Vagabond)
Directed by Agnes Varda
Agnès Varda used the skills she honed early in her career as a photographer to create some of the most nuanced, thought-provoking films of the past fifty years. She is widely believed to have presaged the French new wave with her first film, La Pointe Courte, long before creating one of the movement s benchmarks, Cléo from 5 to 7. Later, with Le bonheur and Vagabond, Varda further shook up art-house audiences, challenging bourgeois codes with her inscrutable characters and effortlessly beautiful compositions and editing. Now working largely as a documentarian, Varda remains one of the essential cinematic poets of our time and a true visionary.

Pierrot le Fou
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina
Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir, and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, the last romantic couple.

February 25, 2008

Very good week-end for Marion Cotillard ! For her portrayal of Édith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” she won the César for best actress on Friday night at the French equivalent of the Academy Awards, and the Best Actress Oscar last night in Los Angeles.
Last month, Marion Cotillard was also honored as best actress by the British Academy Film Awards. She also won a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy or musical.
An amazing performance of Edith Piaf's life...a constant battle to sing, survive, live and love,... from the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York’s most famous concert halls.

At France's Cesars on Friday, the Cesar for best actor went to Mathieu Amalric for his portrayal of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body, in Julian Schnabel's “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”

"La Graine et le Mulet" ("The Secret of the Grain"), a witty social drama about North African immigrant families working in a southern French port town, won the best film award.
Franco-Tunisian filmmaker Abdelattif Kechiche won the Cesar for best director and original screenplay for the surprise hit, while Hafsia Herzi, 21, took the best upcoming actress award for her leading role in the film.

February 24, 2008

Don't miss the new Jacques Rivette, based on Honore de Balzac's novel "Ne Touchez pas a la Hache". The story takes place during the Restoration, a period when the dominant values are hypocrisy, social niceties and the importance of appearances. Antoinette de Navarreins, a Parisian coquette and wife of Duke de Langeais, is a product of the epoch. At a ball, she meets the General Armand de Montriveau. Right from their first encounter, they fall hopelessly in love with each other. Convinced that the duchess is playing games, Montriveau decides to ignore his beloved and to take revenge.

A Film by Jacques Rivette. With Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier, Anne Cantineau
France, 2007, 139 minutes. In French with English subtitles

February 22, 2008

Three movies competing tonight at the Césars 2008, the french film awards, are also nominated at the Oscars: "La Vie en Rose" by Olivier Dahan or the life of French singer Edith Piaf (cf. post of June 12th, 07), "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (7 nominations) by Julian Schnabel (cf. post on January 18th, 08), "Persepolis" (6 nominations) by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud,

February 20, 2008

Joseph's biggest sale of the year is now in its final 10 days. Save 70-90% off at Joseph's Greene Street location where new merchandise has been added for February. This one time opportunity offers drastic reductions on merchandise from all seasons.

February 19, 2008

Tonight, at 11pm, Envoye Special, one of my favorite show on TV5 Monde, is presenting the competition to get in the Nursery Schools in New York city. French journalists Lila Place and Laurent Dubois review the system of selection to be accepted in some of the private schools in Manhattan and how parents prepare their kids for College by picking the "right" Nursery School for them.
Interesting...it looks like the Lycee Francais de New York(www.lfny.org) is one of those competitive schools !!!

TV5 Monde is the only French television channel you can receive here in Manhattan.
You can receive TV5 on the channel 555 of Time Warner cable. Monthly fee for the subscription.www.tv5.org/usa
Call 1-800-737-0455 for a list of other local cables and satellite companies

Partners Remi Laba and Aymeric Clemente, a former manager at La Goulue, the same duo behind Kiss & Fly next door, chose chef Nicolas Cantrel (ex-Bobo) to open this cosy restaurant. Contemporary cuisine with dishes like salmon fillet served with grapefruit and fennel, or grilled calamari seasoned with ginger and parsnip. Ideal for a romantic Valentine's dinner...

Three Saints from Isere, Rhone Alps region, are all blessed with a succulent creamy taste. The Saint Marcellin, the Saint Felicien and the Saint Valentin. Gourmandize and epicurean delights at their wicked best.

February 13, 2008

Mireille Vautier uses fragile media such as plastic bags and creates complex shapes and patterns that evoke both the intricacies of the body and the fragility of the vessel.
Mireille Vautier writes “The human body is my main source of inspiration. Its inside and outside, its wounds and its vivid memory; skeleton, organs, ex-votos, precious jewelry protected by the skin....The human body is a relic, a base for work dealing with memory.”

She graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1986 and has exhibited works on paper, glass as well as her embroideries in numerous exhibitions across France. “Embroidered” will be the artist’s first one-person exhibition in the United States.

February 08, 2008

Don't miss at the IFC Center “The Films of Louis Malle” which spotlights the work of one of France’s most celebrated filmmakers.

Screenings take place Fridays through Sundays at 11:00AM, with added shows on holiday Mondays through March 30. www.ifccenter.com

"It may be hard to see this remarkable director's work whole, but it's worth the effort, and worth even the melancholy of realizing there's no one quite like him making movies now. He was something then." -
Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

FEB 8-10: LACOMBE, LUCIEN (1974)
A young boy is shunned by the Resistance, and forced to join the Gestapo, in Malle's autobiographical account of his experience in France during the occupation. Featuring a score by Django Reinhardt.

FEB 22-24: HUMAIN TROP HUMAIN (1974) with Vive Le Tour (1962)
A companion piece, of sorts, to PLACE DE LA REPUBLIQUE, this evocative documentary explores the mechanization of a Citroen auto plant. With Vive Le Tour, Malle's short look at the Tour de France.

FEB 29-MAR 2: MURMUR OF THE HEART (1971)
In Malle's gentle (and controversial) comedy, a precocious 15 year-old in Dijon comes of age with a helping hand from his mother.

MAR 21-23: CALCUTTA (1969)
Edited down from footage from his six-hour opus Phantom India, Malle's travelogue vivdly captures the sights and sounds of one of India's largest cities.

MAR 28-30: MAY FOOLS (1990)
After the death of their matriarch, a family fights, reconciles, and flees when the protests of '68 threaten to disrupt their insulted lifestyle.

One of Louis Malle's most famous film was AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS (1987), a poignant friendship blossoms between two boys -- one Catholic, one Jewish -- at a French boarding school during WWII. You can find the DVD on www.amazon.com

February 07, 2008

You only have few more weeks to go and enjoy Serge Bloch's humor at the Living Art Gallery in Soho.
Serge Bloch is a contributing illustrator to several US publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, GQ, The Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Scholastic, National Geographic Magazine and France Amerique: "A page of newspaper is like a wall of a gallery that hundreds of thousands of people can visit without being afraid to enter. You can be on a train, in bed or on a bench in the sun. But the exhibit is ephemeral because the following day, it's gone. It's become a piece of paper used to dry your boots or to peel vegetables". Serge enjoys doing humorous work, and refers to it as a work of modest art. http://www.sergebloch.net

Exhibition : January 31rst- February 29.

The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday. Noon to 6 pm
or by appointment. Please call: 917 783 5737
Or email: livingwithart@mac.com

Living with Art gallery
153 Lafayette Street 7th floor
New York NY 10013

February 04, 2008

Numerous are those of you who asked me where to find a good utensils for cooking in New York. All the chefs I asked gave me the same answer : Bowery Kitchen Supplies at 75 Ninth Avenue and 88 Tenth Avenue.

If you love cooking, you will find the best low priced, useful, funky, innovative, kitchen gadgets that you actually need over there.
Bowery Kitchen Supplies has been in business since 1975 supplying New York's restaurants and also the Food Network. If you have any questions, "ask the old guy up at the front." And if you go on the right day, there'll be a knife sharpening lady...http://www.bowerykitchens.com/

They have opened another store called Bowery Kitchen East, specialized in knives and chef's clothing on 5 Rivington Street (Bowery), (212) 477-8681.

If you are looking for baking supply, I suggest New York Cake & Baking Distributors . It is a great big emporium of everything you need to make your pastry, candy or cookie masterpiece. Tons of pans, packaging and chocolate moulds. Lots of decorations, chocolates, flavorings and anything else you would need and can't find elsewhere. But help yourself because the staff is not the most friendly than I have ever met...
56 W 22nd St (between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
(212) 675-2253